Peaches and Cream
by HelpMeImShrinking
Summary: Ever wondered what goes on inside that shy girl in the back corner's head? Peach is in 7th grade, & just transferred from a private to a public school. Rated PG for truths about life. Middle school life is just rated PG. Don't ask.
1. Conformity

August 27  
  
Think the only people who are people   
  
Are the people who look and think like you   
  
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger   
  
You learn things you never knew   
  
You never knew   
  
- Vanessa Williams, Colors of the Wind  
  
Today was the first day of seventh grade. And I don't know why it can't be the first day of sixth grade, or even ninth grade. Because this means that you have to come in the middle, between sixth and eighth grade, when everyone already knows each other. You're an outkast. A loser. A stranger.  
  
And yes, I definitely got treated like one.   
  
Last year was the last year I would be going to a private school. The all-girls Rose Academy. Uniforms and all. Everyone was smart because you pretty much had to be to get in. And I really don't consider myself smart, but I don't know. The teachers were really strict. Slamming down the fist of conformity. And I admit, I didn't like being the same as everyone like they were trying to make us be. But I got used to it.   
  
But this public school is so... different.   
  
From the first second, I felt lost. Washed in a sea of color. My parents had bought me this really nice pink pouffy dress, and I felt colorful and... free. But when I walked in, I felt paranoid. I felt like people were secretly, inside laughing at me. I didn't hear them. But maybe it had to do with the fact that they were all wearing tight T-shirts and miniskirts for the girls and chainy jeans and black loose T-shirts for the boys. I didn't fit in. I stood out. Out of the crowd, and out of nowhere.  
  
I don't like to stand out. At all.  
  
Maybe it's because I don't have much experience standing out. Of course. At a private school where everyone has the same clothes, same heart-shaped face, same personality (well we all acted boring, because of rules and things)... you just can't.  
  
Now I know that all the Rose Academy was trying to do was protect us.  
  
From the real world.   
  
But, it's weird. I feel like I'm destined to be one of the Rose Academy graduates. One of those boring, conformed people with no visible personality whatsoever. Not a pink pouffy dress kind of person. A white uniform person.   
  
I could just hear their minds. Oh. Look at that new DORK over there, in such a DORKY pouffy dress from the DORKY 1800's and with a DORKY personality and a DORKY face and a DORKY everyDORKYthing. What a DORK. I'm too cool for that DORK over there.   
  
Maybe I am a dork. 


	2. Uncool

August 28  
  
Don't cry out loud  
  
Just keep it inside  
  
Oh, and learn how to hide your feelings  
  
Fly high and proud  
  
And if you should fall   
  
Remember you almost had it all...  
  
- Melissa Manchester, Don't Cry Out Loud  
  
Nobody understands.  
  
Nobody understands what it's like to be the quiet, strange girl, sitting in the corner of the classroom apart from the rest of the tightly-knit class, drawing a picture of a depressed girl and writing angsty poems about not fitting in. Watching. Wondering.  
  
I do.   
  
Because I am her.  
  
I'll never be like them. I'll always be the outcast. I'll always be the loser. The freak. The bohemian. It'll always be Them and Me. The Student Body and the Outcast. The Cool and the Uncool. Somebody... and Nobody.  
  
Why do some people have to go through this experience? This pain? While others don't, have a happy, perfect life, lots of friends, popular... I accept the fact that I'll never have a perfect life. I'll never really be happy. It's unlikely that I'll have lots of friends and popular. I can't be popular. "Peach" and "popular" don't fit in the same sentence.   
  
Besides, I have the name of a fruit. What were my parents thinking?  
  
Parents.   
  
I shudder on that word.   
  
Anyways, they'll have a perfect life. I won't.   
  
Is that the way the world turns? How life goes?   
  
Believe me, I will not be looking forward to tomorrow... 


End file.
